Section: Guides

Risk Management in a Nut Shell

Risk Management in a Nut Shell(Not to be confused with Risk Assessments)

As part of managing the health and safety of your business (yes, your academy/school is a business) you must control the risks in your workplace. To do this you need to think about what might cause harm to people and decide whether you are taking reasonable steps to prevent that harm – the hazard.

Types of Risk

There are many different types of risk that risk management plans can mitigate. Common risks include things like accidents in the workplace or fires, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. It can also include legal risks like fraud, theft, and sexual harassment lawsuits. Risks can also relate to business practices, or the security and storage of data and records.

The idea behind using risk management practices is to protect businesses from being vulnerable.

Many business risk management plans may focus on keeping the company viable and reducing financial risks. However, risk management is also designed to protect the employees, customers, and general public from negative events like fires or acts of terrorism that may affect them.

Risk management practices are also about preserving the physical facilities, data, records, and physical assets a school owns or uses.

While a variety of different strategies can mitigate or eliminate risk, the process for identifying and managing the risk is fairly standard and consists of five basic steps.

First, threats or risks are identified.

Second, the vulnerability of key assets like information to the identified threats is assessed.

Third, the risk manager must determine the expected consequences of specific threats to assets.

Fourth, figure out ways to reduce risks.

Fifth, prioritize the risk management procedures based on their importance.

There are as many different types of strategies for managing risk as there are types of risks. These break down into four main categories.

Risk can be managed by accepting the consequences of a risk and budgeting for it.

Another strategy is to transfer the risk to another party by insuring against a particular event, like fire or a slip-and-fall accident.

Closing down a particular high-risk area of a school can avoid risk.

The manager can reduce the risk's negative effects, for instance, by installing sprinklers for fires or instituting a back-up plan for data.

Having a risk management plan is an important part of maintaining a successful and responsible academy/school. Every academy/school should have one. It will help to protect people as well as physical and financial assets.